Al-Ashjaʿī—whose name was ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUbayd al-Raḥmān—was trustworthy and reliable, and, as stated in al-Taqrīb, among the most accurate people in recording al-Thawrī’s narrations. Al-Dhahabī said in al-Kāshif: “A leading imam of firm reliability; he recorded thirty thousand reports from al-Thawrī.” Accordingly, Yaʿlā’s narration is more weighty than that of Abū Usāmah, as is apparent.

What Abū ʿUbayd narrated in his book al-Ṭuhūr, from al-Ḥakam ibn Bashīr ibn Sulaymān, from Mūsā ibn Abī Mūsā, with the wording, “Minor ablution is three [times], and whoever adds or omits…” may seem to undermine this preference. I say: No. Even though Ibn al-Mulaqqin passed over it without comment in al-Badr al-Munīr (3/336)—and he should not have done so—this al-Ḥakam cannot rival al-Thawrī in trustworthiness and precision. No one declared him trustworthy apart from Ibn Ḥibbān, while Abū Ḥātim said: “Truthful.” Moreover, he contradicted him in another point, just as he also contradicted Abū ʿAwānah in it: he made the Prophet’s performing minor ablution three times part of the Prophet’s own statement. This shows that he did not preserve it accurately. Thus, his narration too is outweighed, and the hadith under discussion remains the preserved version, without the addition. This is the version whose authenticity Ibn al-Qayyim decisively affirmed in Ighāthat al-Lahfān.

Furthermore, there is another reason for citing this hadith here: to refute an enemy of the sunnah and one who declares authentic hadiths weak. I have seen him begin launching other destructive attacks, under the guise of annotating and editing certain works by renowned imams and declaring weak the hadiths upon which they based their discussions. He had previously ravaged al-Nawawī’s Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn, as is well known; and now he has appeared before the public with a new edition of the aforementioned Ighāthat al-Lahfān, upon which he has appended exceedingly poor comments. Through his weakening—out of his profound ignorance or wilful disregard—of its authentic hadiths, including this hadith, he has corrupted many of its valuable discussions; for Ibn al-Qayyim cited it in refutation